


a man of his work

by beeapocalypse



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Evil Found Family, Gen, OH very important tag i forgot, as well as canon typical horror w regards 2 the stranger, cannot. think of many things to tag this w LOL despite the warning tags it is Generally lighthearted, is NOT explicit it is mentioned but there are no in depth descriptions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:01:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25853266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beeapocalypse/pseuds/beeapocalypse
Summary: an exploration into one daniel rawlings, the beast which pulled at his strings, and the relations between smiling clowns(ie i love the stranger and how its an evil found family and the mention of breekon+hope delivering 2 the trophy room in mag 54 makes me go AUUIII)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	a man of his work

**Author's Note:**

> i DO intend 4 this to be a series which goes deeper into daniels relationship w breekon+hope and other strangers as a whole but there is NO solid update schedule and writing is still very weird 4 me rn

Daniel Rawlings had brown hair, brown hair that was always a little too stiff to look good despite every attempt to style it.

What he he did not have a gap between his left canine and incisor that was barely imperceptible yet still there, sunken eyes that still would’ve looked like a raccoon mask even if he ever slept enough to make the dark circles fade, or the hands of a workman, solid and with a weight behind them that most people just  _ didn’t  _ have. He was not built with a natural heft despite most of his heavy lifting in an average day being rearranging the pieces of the Trophy Room, and he was not a man who’s neutral expression was slightly bared teeth and furrowed brows. The brown hair was the only thing the Anglerfish had gotten right, and it quite liked it that way.

Perfect imitations with a single overlooked flaw was the calling card of the Not Them, the flighty little thing. They jumped from identity to identity as if it were a cruel game of hopscotch, delighting in the few minutiae that slipped past the scope of the powers. Powerful, yet completely controlled by their whims. The Anglerfish found a small, humorless laugh in being their opposite, for all it’s slow planning. It laid the foundations, worked towards infrastructure rather than terror, cast its net as far as it could go to gather as many fools tricked by a pale echo of life. 

The Not Them did not play long games, and they did not seek to isolate once their great treachery had been managed. The thrill of discovery was what they chased after. The instant the Anglerfish had shucked one Daniel Rawlings of his skin and forced as much cotton and sawdust, wool and wire into the hollow shell left behind that it had gathered in its numerous stomachs, it had worked to drop the man off the face of the earth ( _ all supplies for the taxidermy regurgitated for speed- as intoxicatingly terrified any drunkard would’ve been stumbling across the back alley horrorshow, the Anglerfish had no time for such delays. The meat would be swallowed whole and kept in much the same way it had the stuffing, until there was a chance to slink to the wax museum that was slowly becoming the Stranger’s sanctuary _ ). Discovery for it was a lost asset, a puppet to be stripped of its flesh and given to the clown for whatever new ploy she had in the works, leaving it with nothing but sodden, unusable stuffing.

The being formerly known as Daniel Rawlings was not the Anglerfish.  _ That  _ was a thing of its- his own, though he lacked any sense of self that approached anything akin to the others. A stranger even among Strangers, he isolated just as the Anglerfish did, was one of the creature’s endless, evermoving hands working towards rapture. Naught but skin and a handful of memories and an  _ investment _ . 

That did not stop the exasperating, incomprehensible attempts at familiarity and- I Do Not Know You forbid it- humor from the few fellows that would come calling to the Trophy Room. Largely the couriers- and the Anglerfish had always held them in such high regard before. Always in motion, always laying the bricks just as it did, not letting any indulgences in sentimentality keep them from the neverending work. 

It started, as did the deliveries, shortly after Daniel Rawlings came into possession of the Trophy Room- a pure coincidence, one that changed the Anglerfish’s view of him from that of simple indifference to interest. Such a place, already so intrinsically linked to the sphere of the Stranger and so feared by humans, was perfect. A few touches here and a couple renovations there, and the Anglerfish could see it as a perfect den of terror ( _ that was before the days of the museum. Though the clown plotted her way towards the Unknowing since the very moment she could comprehend the  _ shape  _ of it- not the  _ meaning _ of it though, that would completely defeat the purpose- the Strangers had no sanctuary near the breadth of the wax museum. Small spaces of fear, yes, but the Anglerfish saw something more than just that in the dingy, worn down shop _ ). 

The basement was another such happy coincidence. The Anglerfish took pride in how long it could keep its  _ projects _ moving, keep pieces on the playing field, but there was a point where what few base instincts that allowed them to move as detached from the being as they could began to fade. Though they could not be used as wandering sound designers or what have you, they worked well enough as lures. Echoes of the most simple life, a handful of repeated phrases that would draw fresh meat in. The basement of the Trophy Room provided much needed storage space that the Anglerfish lacked in stomachs, as well as allowing it to keep tabs on its little project through glass marble eyes and wool stuffed ears ( _ it had a sense of where Daniel Rawlings was, what he heard and saw, but far more distant than the husks. A loss of autonomy, as little as any of the stuffed bodies had, allowed the Anglerfish to further impose its own self onto them _ ). 

The first delivery was barely that- more a courtesy visit with an excuse in the form of a stuffed rabbit the clown had gotten ahold of some years ago. Cute. The delivery men must have known, or at least had some idea, that they were the first fellow Strangers the once Daniel Rawlings had met- careful laid plans that had no time for distraction and its own tendency to isolate meant it kept its own work far from any Stranger that could annoy it in their mingling and prodding.

*****

Daniel knew the delivery van before he had a chance to read the faded name plastered on it, before it had squeaked to an abrupt stop on breaks that sounded like they were getting worn to the point of worry. Knew it in the same way he knew of clowns and mannequins and things in the dark that tried bumming cigarettes off of you like a broken record as things suspended above slavered over new meat. Knew it as he did everything bizarre and Strange.

Knew it as the shop he had first stepped foot in a week ago. Hadn’t even known of its existence until it was dropped in his lap- some old man the father of Daniel-That-Was had been friends with had died and left it to another dead man. The abrupt shift in management was only a partial cause for the temporary closing. The other was far more malevolent, far more insidious, and had slinked  _ its _ way out of the shop’s basement just the night before, returned to prowling through alleyways and the dark underbellies of the city for fresh flesh. Though there were visceral reminders of the presence left, reminders of his ultimate fate forever murmuring to themselves under the floorboards, and orders to renovate the shop. 

The two men who stepped out of the delivery van were nondescript to the extreme. Faded coveralls and boots speckled with dried mud, faces that blurred in the space before a blink and right after to fit what was  _ normal _ , though the baser parts of the brain screamed they were not ( _ though he’d gotten enough of that screaming just with his skin that it had become a new normal- though it spiked at every scratch of wool on flesh and each joint bent with wire instead of tendon _ ). 

Daniel had been reaching up to straighten the plaque of a taxidermied bass with one hand, the other pawing for another cigarette to light as soon as the last went out, when he made eye contact with the driver. A quick blink and a glance back to his interrupted work and it was over, but the moment was still unnerving ( _ beyond the eyes, what little remained of Daniel Rawlings in his skin simply did not handle faces well. The muscle memory of looking just left of someone or always having something at hand to excuse any apparent inattentiveness just served to keep the eyes hidden _ ). 

The delivery men were at the door the next moment he looked up, one of them pointing to the poor attempt at a tiger displayed in the window- it had felt right to put it there, to set up expectations for some poor shabbery of skill before the  _ real _ show was seen- and grunting out what must’ve been a roaring joke, judging by the other’s abrupt laughter. One of them had gotten a box in his hands when Daniel wasn’t looking, and he held it close to his side as he rapped the knuckles of his free hand on the door.

The sign was flipped to 'closed'. Daniel knew that, and he was sure that the Breekon & Hope delivery men standing outside his shop knew it as well. The other had moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with his partner, hands pressed to shield his eyes from the sun as he peered in. He  _ had  _ placed orders but not with such a shabby looking bunch, and the box was far too small for any of those  _ just  _ placed orders for chemicals and the like. 

He crossed the cramped distance in a few long strides, opened the door before the one with a five o’clock shadow- or was it scruffy sideburns, the start of a mustache- could knock again. The glass’ tinting had done too much service for the delivery men’s complexions, made pallid skin look like it had a bit of life left in it. They were taller than what Daniel had thought in a glance, and he shifted his weight back as he jutted his chin out at the one with a nose that looked like it had gotten broken a few too many times. “Hello?”

“The name’s Breekon.” The one holding the box and with chewed at fingernails held out a hand towards him. 

“Hope.” The one with laugh lines filled in the silence after the introduction smoothly, kept one hand tucked away in the pocket of his coveralls and the other on his partner’s shoulder. “Got a delivery.”

“Yeah, for a,” The one with a cleft chin-  _ Breekon _ , supposedly, though the name seemed to slide right off the figure standing in front of Daniel in his thoughts- took a cursory look down at the box in his hand, “Daniel Rawlings.” The smile had plenty of humor and care, none of it directed the taxidermist’s way.

“That would be me.” Daniel cast his eyes about for the nearest ashtray- he wasn’t some animal, stubbing them out on any old work in the shop- and reached for a new cigarette. Neither delivery man seemed to react to the smoke, despite the clear sign forbidding it hanging on the shop door. Daniel’s lackluster idea of a joke.

The identification seemed to brighten up the one with his fingers drumming on the top of the box, one of them cut short at the knuckle- some sort of machinery accident? “Daniel Rawlings, in the flesh!”

“Can’t be anything else, can it, Breekon? Man’s got just about nothing  _ but _ flesh.” The other, the one with watery brown eyes, said with teeth bared in what might’ve been a teasing smile. That got a sudden, bright laugh from Breekon- again, the name barely fit- and an indignant glare from Daniel. Shocked as he was at the blatant joke at his  _ nature _ , reeling and more than a bit guarded, it was annoying.

“Yes, yes, that’s me.” Daniel had to click his lighter a few times before he could get it started, taking the moment to light his cigarette to gather his wits, as few and far as they were. “Delivery from who?”

“Don’t think he liked the joke, Hope.” The one who kept his weight on his left leg nudged at his partner with an elbow. “Losing your edge, yeah?”

“He’s fish bait. Don’t think any clown could get  _ its  _ sort to laugh.”

“Courier  _ is  _ a far shot from clown. Should think about changing careers before trying again.”

“Already have enough of those around. Liked those students more than any of Gregor’s lot.”

“Old man never was that funny. New clown’s a bit better.”

Being spoken over so thoroughly made Daniel balk- caught up in a strange mix of fury and undeniable curiosity, hearing these two strangers speak of their own lives and acquaintances so openly in front of him- without the context to form a full story, but there was enough there to make his teeth  _ ache  _ with the certainty that these things should mean something to him. He rallied when Hope ( _ and that name stuck no better than Breekon, did it? _ ) paused, no doubt to think of some half baked quip, and butted in. “ _ Who _ is the package from?”

The two pairs of eyes that turn back to him are passive in the face of his annoyance. “The clown.” The one with his hair pushed close to his eyes by his cap said it as if it were obvious. 

“Miss Orsinov.” The other, lower lip dragged down the slightest bit by the faintest scar, filled in.

The name sounded familiar. Sounded like something  _ it _ had told him of. Lurking, always lurking in dark alleyways and forgotten corners, a thing of swaying feelers and clicking mandibles and flesh run through with a thousand and one ventricles, what little gaps to the cavities within whistling like an organ with each movement, each eased in and eased out huff of air. An organic calliope with a dozen humming mouths, a hundred porcelain hands that worked with brutal efficiency to unmake and skin and  _ remake _ . It had spoken of a clown and a circus, of strangers and skin and so much more that Daniel  _ understood _ in the moment it had slipped the skin off of his meat. 

It had spoken of fear, and the package that Breekon-maybe-Hope held out to him inspired much in his gut. The insistent shake when he didn’t take it did nothing to settle that feeling. 

“Orsinov.” His voice was flat, his eyes fixed on the package. Plain cardboard and a lack of a return address. “What is it?” 

“We don’t look at the insides.” The one with sunburnt arms stated that as if it were obvious.

“That’s the job of others.” The other smiled a buck toothed smile, pushed the box fully into the hand Daniel hadn’t realized he’d held out.

“Do I-” The box weighed just as much as Daniel had expected, and he could feel something shift in it as he moved to place it on the closest flat surface. He reached for memories of deliveries past, grasped for some semblance of familiarity. “Do I have to sign somewhere? Something for your records?” 

He knew it was a stupid question a moment before the two burst into laughter. It was a jarring sound, abrupt and too cacophonous for just two men, though one got it under control quicker than his still chuckling partner. “No.”

“Don’t need a paper trail when it comes to family.” The one who smiled as if it were the most natural thing in the world elaborated. “Something that can be  _ seen. _ ” Daniel didn’t like the emphasis he placed, the way he widened his eyes for a moment. “Doesn’t matter with others- anything can happen to them, ‘long as they get the packages- but you’re a Stranger. We know where the deliveries go.”

“Ah.” He didn’t know what to make of that, so he pushed past it. Plenty of daylight left, plenty more to get done around the shop, and something where his gut used to be felt certain he would be seeing the delivery men again. “And your word is good enough for Orsinov, I suppose.”

“Miss Orsinov wouldn’t notice if the package never left her desk.” Daniel was too busy looking for  _ some _ hint of strangeness, a detail overlooked on the package, to try and figure out which delivery man had spoken. The hand that suddenly clapped down on his shoulder, far more weighty than it had any right to be, nearly made him drop his cigarette. He looked up and saw a ruddy face- Breekon or Hope? Did it even matter?- and a smile that was wrong yet not at the same time. “Be seeing you ‘round.”

“Stay safe.”

“Don’t let the spiders bite.”

“Don’t think it's the bites you have to worry about, Hope. Look out for cobwebs.”

“Hm. Don’t let the cops bite, then.”

“Tear your little fingers right off.”

The farewells turned banter between the two was cut off with the cheery ring of the bells upon the shop’s door, the sudden movement they had brought to the room of perfectly preserved corpses gone in a moment. Jarring. Daniel watched with a package from a clown to his right and a deer that had been shot twenty years ago to his left, watched one of the two climb into the driver’s seat ( _ Hope? He wanted to say Hope, but then got the sense that he should listen to the opposite of what little confidence he had in distinguishing the two _ ), the other taking a moment to peer into the back of the van before slamming the doors shut and joining his partner. 

The whole interaction had been. Strange. It was the only word he could think to describe it. It seemed like such a  _ simplification _ of it all, but nothing else fit quite as well. It was strange, but not a  _ terrible _ strange. 

*****

Daniel did not open the package until long after the sun was in just the right position to blare into the shop through the front windows, bathing the display room in such stark sunset light that it hurt his eyes. He had retreated to the cramped office at that point, package under his arm and notebook in hand that he had been using to note down ideas for more rearrangements. Perhaps all of the thought he was putting into which fish to place on which wall and what surroundings would best compliment the king vulture was excessive, but he had been told to care for the shop by  _ it.  _ It was the first real command he had been given, a purpose dropped into his lap, and he feared what would come if he were to prove unsatisfactory.

The withdrawal was far from the end of his work- endless papers to organize, an inventory to count up and double check, all of the dull delights of sudden business ownership- but it was with more purpose than hauling an armful of squirrels to one shelf in the front room, going back on his decision, and hauling them right back to the shelf they had been on in the first place. He put off a few more hours doing just that, squinting dead eyes down at dates and seeing if they correlated with other documents. Perhaps it was the cautious patience  _ it _ had, or maybe it had once been Daniel-No-More’s own, but he needed to make sure the previous owner hadn’t made a mess of transactions and the like. Getting bitten in the ass for the actions of a man dead and gone could mean discovery, could mean failing  _ it, _ could mean… Something. Something Daniel desperately dreaded for its vagueness. 

He did not quite know  _ why _ he put off opening the package for so long. There was a fear that lived where his stomach should’ve been, the nervousness that came with knowing there was something for him from someone he did not know, though she knew  _ him _ . The fear of the unknown, something that he would have to confront, and there was a certain strange delight that danced hand in hand with that anxiety. He drew it out, found more and more tiny details to double and triple check as he listened for any faint whispers that might slip through the crack between water damaged wood flooring and the trapdoor to the basement. 

By the time he had made a proper mess of the ancient filing cabinet and decided that was enough, Daniel’s leg was bouncing and his fingers were tapping upon the desk, looking for any way to channel that energy. One more paper shuffled into a pile that would stay that way until the new filing cabinet came in ( _ something that looked a little less like it had been termite heaven in the past- Daniel never knew the man the shop used to belong to, but he seemed quite absent in the upkeep department _ ), and he finally made a grab for the box. 

It was utterly nondescript, from the white cardboard that had just the right amount of scuffs and the like to be expected, to the ‘BREEKON&HOPE DELIVERIES’ sticker slapped on it at a crooked angle. Completely normal, yet there was a fear of the unknown that came with it. The packing tape holding it closed was at a slight slant as well, and it took jabbing a pen through it to make up for the lack of scissors on hand. Daniel took a moment to stub out his cigarette in the nearest ash tray and opened it up.

Dead eyes stared up at him from within. The immediate sensation of being  _ watched _ was enough to jolt Daniel as he lit up a new cigarette, then startled a quick laugh out of him when he actually saw what it was. Taxidermy. Of course. A little white rabbit, dressed up in a little waistcoat. It was kind of cute- in spite of the obvious age of the piece and the attempt at closing one eye in a coy wink that had rather made the thing look deformed. The only thing he could think to make it any more fitting a gift from  _ the clown  _ would be if it had a lacy collar.

He lifted it out of the box with careful hands ( _ though not before ashing his cigarette to make sure none got on the old thing _ ), halfway to placing it down on his desk before he saw there was more yet in the box. A handful of papers, folded neat and tucked to the side. The smell of burnt sugar and something distinctly iron wafted up as he drew them out, flipping quick to get an idea of what they were. Looked like a letter.

Though they had been shuffled together with precision, the papers themselves were far from neat. Smears decorated the edge where one’s hand would brush while writing, muddy brown stains and the signs of grease. Little tears where the pen was pressed too hard, certain pages crumpled then smoothed out once more. The script itself cut across the page at times, all edges and definite strokes, yet wobbled at other points, looping and swirling as a delirious spider’s web would- written at such a size that only a few sentences could be shoved on a page at a time. It danced the sharp edge between being over the top to the point of ridiculousness and that little uncertainty that comes with being faced with such a jarring sight. 

It took a bit of squinting and angling the page at moments when the writing got particularly cluttered, but Daniel read through the letter in the time it took to smoke a cigarette and a half.

‘MY NEWEST DEAREST FRIEND DANIEL :)

‘HELLO!!! Congratulations on your newfound ownership of the Trophy Room- what a fantastic little place ! I do hope the bunny finds you well and settled in with all papers shuffled in their places and fish nailed wherever they need to go and all that humdrum. Business is SUCH a bore, am I right ??? 

‘Take good care of what’s landed in your lap though !!! All you’ve got there now is NORMAL stuffed things- though I HAVE caught word that a certain mutual acquaintance has been using the basement to tuck away a few fellow fellows like you!- but that will change ! We can tuck only so many STRANGE ;) things in strange corners before we run out of them, and somewhere as already feared as a taxidermy shop is the PERFECT little place!

‘I DO hope the couriers stayed around to chat for a bit- real SOLID guys when you get to know them ! I’m sure they'll be quick to become FAMILIAR faces around the place ( _ did you get the joke ??? _ ) and you'll become even faster friends! Don’t worry your sawdust stuffed little head about any semantics or papers or ANYTHING with them OR any of us at all- you’re in good hands with me here ! Good, many fingered and plastic and segmented hands- MANNEQUIN hands!! ;) ( _ that’s what I am !!! We simply MUST make time to meet one of these days! _ )

‘WITH LOVE AND CARE AND AN INFINITE AMOUNT OF EXPECTATIONS NOT TO BE PRESSURED BY,

‘MISS NIKOLA ORSINOV THE RINGMASTER :)))’

Daniel smiled down at the ringmaster’s own drawn beside her name, the neatest the pen had been throughout the entire letter. He caught onto the unintentional expression a moment later and smothered it under a drag of his cigarette. Still, for that being all the letter, there were quite a few more papers to read through. He flipped to the next, ashing his cigarette in the same motion.

‘P.S.

‘The bunny is a relic from the GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1851!! Such a beautiful beautiful display that I had found the time to slip to- the show may never stop, but one clown can go missing for just a bit! You wouldn’t believe just how MANY fingers were in that particular pie, just how fraught with terror that place was! It was PERFECT for a stranger, and all it took was a few pulled strings and a handful of tricks ( _ though I am no spider and a magician never reveals her tricks! _ ) and a love beyond love for all things taxidermied took root there! 

‘Consider this little piece of history a proper ‘welcome to the family’ gift from me, Daniel !!! Our mutual friend ( _ I WOULD give a name- or a near enough approximation of one- but it's quite fickle around matters like that _ ) may have brought you here, but it seems to have been QUITE remiss in proper introductions! If we are to make proper use of your Trophy Room- and I DO hope we will- then there’s no point in being a STRANGER ;) 

‘Though I DO have quite the stuffed schedule right now- near as stuffed as any little squirrel in your shop, i have no doubt!- I am certain the couriers will be making their rounds ‘round there regularly! As I’ve said- don’t worry over a SINGLE thing concerning them! They’ve been at their work for longer than I’ve ever been around, and they’ve been KILLING it for longer than you could even guess!!! Really, there is no need to fear beyond the fear that feeds the I Do Not Know You, and there is nothing better than doing just that with family!!

‘AGAIN, WITH LOVE, CARE, AND ALL THOSE OTHER THINGS,

‘THE ONE AND ONLY DARLING MISS NIKOLA ORSINOV, OF  _ THE CIRCUS OF THE OTHER _ FAME AND ACCLAIM :)’

The charm of what was supposed to be a small end note ending up longer than the letter itself, of Miss Nikola’s enthusiasm and all the little affections for a dead man she had never laid eyes upon before, a dead man who had merritt beyond just the Trophy Room, was lost in the way his hand clenched and crumpled the pages at the slightest mention of  _ it.  _

For all the cute hospitalities and the open-arms reception, Daniel Rawlings had still been taken. Was still just skin and a scant few memories walking around by the will of a beast far more malevolent, more incomprehensible than any living could be. He would end up as nothing more than a missing person report and a mummering lure to be used by  _ it _ in whatever way it saw fit. A footnote in the big picture of clowns and circuses and skin. 

Still, the rabbit stayed in his office. Still, he tucked the letter away in his desk with care.

**Author's Note:**

> as da sole fan of daniel rawlings+the anglerfish as a whole i Must think fake deep thoughts abt them . 
> 
> tiny tidbit thatll come up in later chapters if i do write them is i like the idea that unlike other prominent figures of the stranger (like the not-them) just being Monsters of the entity, it instead was once a human who got THOROUGHLY wrangled+rent thru centuries of service smth abt the thought of avatars being twisted so much theyre utterly unrecognizable from who they started as (IE THAT ONE THEORY OF THE COFFIN BEING HEZEKIAH WAKELY AUGGHJ) just rlly rlly GETS me


End file.
